Why Reeves & co. aren't studying viruses in CFS

This is from a link that Quayman posted-it is a letter from Dr. Reeves to Dr. Dharam Ablashi, a researcher who is now part of the HHV-6 Foundation. Reeves is explaining why he refused to attend their "Viruses in CFS" conference last year. According to this letter, Reeves and the CFS researchers at the CDC cannot even study herpes viruses-so what is the point of funding them if they are not able to study viruses found in (according to one source) 70% of people w/ CFS?

On 2/20/08 3:38 PM, "Reeves, William C. (CDC/CCID/NCZVED)" &lt;[log in to unmask]&gt;
wrote:

Dr. Ablashi,

It's good to hear from you again and it looks like HHV-6 is taking off in
ways I bet you never could have imagined when you first began to describe
it.

My Branch has been reorganized as the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch and no
longer has responsibility for herpes group virus research at CDC. I
suggest you contact Dr. D. Scott Schmid and see if he or a member of his
Branch can represent CDC at the meeting. He took over responsibility for
herpes work at CDC after Phil Pellett left. I see that you have invited
Dr. Andrew Lloyd from the University of New South Wales. He was PI on the
post-infection fatigue studies that CDC funded and collaborated on and he
can present this work much more elegantly than I.

The studies you are proposing sound very interesting. Again, since my
group does not work directly with herpesviruses, we cannot collaborate in
laboratory studies; I suggest you contact Dr. D. Scott Schmid for possible
collaboration on immunohistochemistry studies. As you know Dr. Schmid
worked with Carlos Lopez and Phil Pellett back in the old days of HHV-6 and
this could be of great interest to him. Unfortunately, I cannot provide
funding for studies such as you are proposing at this point in time due to
severe budget constraints. However, you may wish to contact Dr. Suzanne
Vernon newly appointed Scientific Director at the CFIDS Association of
America. I understand they are launching a major new research funding
effort for well designed focused pilot studies such as the one you
proposed.

Finally, I cannot help with funding for any conferences at this time.
Again, you may wish to apply to the CFIDS Association of America.

It would seem that his role is to spread lots of confusion and bs, and to do "studies" that are inherently flawed, and in doing so to try to convince the general population and the Drs that ME is not real and CFS is a form of mental illness....oh and somehow by doing all this, he also seems to think that he can pacify us into believing that he actually has our best interests at heart and is doing all he can for us......sorry, but I'm not buying it!

simone-Reeves is supposed to be the director of the CDC's CFS research program.

emmally-thanks for posting Dr. Schmid's email-maybe it would pique his interest if we sent some really nice emails to him. At the same time though we'd have to insist to the CFSAC on May 27th & 28th that the CDC change the way that it's handling our disease, so that if Dr. Schmid is interested then he'd have the opportunity to do something about it. Right now Reeves has a stranglehold on CFS research, and it looks like he gets to decide what gets studied and what doesn't.

It's so typical for Reeves to have a "sorry, that's not my department" excuse. We need to MAKE viral research part of their department-otherwise their research will go nowhere.